


patrilineage (welcome to the sunlight)

by protaganope



Category: Original Work
Genre: Fire as a bonding tool, Gen, Memories, Pyromania, Reference to war, Smoking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-08
Updated: 2018-12-08
Packaged: 2019-09-14 03:41:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16905441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/protaganope/pseuds/protaganope
Summary: Memories of his father and brother are far and few between, but this? He has keen grasp on this.He shan’t let go of this until he’s seen the angels.





	patrilineage (welcome to the sunlight)

He remembers the quivering flame from his youth, a truly dancing thing, casting a weak halo of light in the seemingly endless darkness of some hour past twelve, as his father made story of his life. His father’s voice was always bathed in yellows, reds and the darkest of tones, and his face, too, was swathed in shadow.  
  
He would listen well to tales of sand-seized engines, eaten by desert. To tales of the Earth, scarred with deep wounds, bitten and spat out without feeling.

His father had likened those responsible to a mercurial beast, when the war had at last come to an end, one that had quite suddenly lost interest after years of hurt.  
  
(It was cheaper, his father had explained to him, all furrowed brow and cigar in fist, to bury their machinery of war with the silica than to exert unnecessary energy in returning the things to England.)  
  
Even in his memories, the dark wooden chair his father had always sat astride religiously groans tiredly whilst somehow remaining fixed within its tailored mould. It was, without a doubt, an antique, from every angle.  
  
Not that his father paid this any heed. He had never been a particularly large man, but had been imposing all the same. Forever maintaining the habit of landing all of his weight into each step, this also transferred to his posture when seated.  
  
“My father,” his father had once said, only once, before, “was of the same habit, and I myself see no reason to abstain.”  
  
His father had never been one to speak often of family. And he respected that, he did, but—

He would be lying if he did not admit that the silence brought selfish, untamed flame rising up from his belly, the kind that rose fast through the ribbed cable of his throat to a razor-sharp mouth, teetering upon blind rage, from time to time.

 

* * *

 

There is much more to a fire than simply igniting the wood.

He knew this well, knew from the long nights found in every season and remembers what he learnt even now. A fire is a living being; it has a heart, it eats, breathes, and eventually dies. Leaves a quill of smoke, sketching a line up into the sky.

Conjures a legacy of ghostly potash, and a dark but comforting scent, one that that lingers with you, long after the date.  
  
He and his brother live a second time again here, and they’re young and stupid but maybe that’s just himself. They first tear paper tissue to pieces, place them dead centre, and then they add careful beams of cereal cardboard, torn to strips, admire the pointedly jagged edges. His brother would usually strike a match, curse quietly as the heat licked at his fingers as he dipped it into the centre of their creation, and from there they would just watch, waiting for the show to begin.  
  
But in this particular memory, the day is cold, threatening to rain, windy. After a less than promising start, the infantile fire the pair had managed to form held a terribly short lifespan.  
  
For a moment, he thinks they’d failed, and utters this, voice dejected.  
  
His brother simply tosses him a grin before leaning close to the fire.

He cups his hands and blows gently into the embers, breathing life back into the orange hues, somehow reviving it. The fire comes back roaring and he stares at his brother in awe, wondering if he held a sort of superpower.  
  
Such as it has always been, that children believe their elders hold the power of a deity and more. In the minor section of his perceived world, it makes perfect sense that his brother, taller and bigger and so many years away, is king.  
  
Little sparks from the wood pop and flash into the night, and water bubbled out of the bark’s sides, to sound a quiet hiss, a pedal note in the symphony that his brother from fire composed.  
  
He’s never seen real fireflies before, but he likes to think that the drifting embers, rising and melting into the night sky, resemble them pretty well.  
  
His brother’s hands are that of labourers, tough skin stretched and worn over capable fingers and palms. Every tendon and muscle and joint are highlighted in this tender fire glow, exaggerating the features in a golden cast that fringes the sides of his vision. His own are not yet a mirrored image, protected from the same fate by the smothering, inescapable grasp of their mother.

This memory is dependable and homely, and he feels the sting of emotion threatening to spill over in the darkness.


End file.
